Exclusive: How GH's Costume Designer Dressed The Brook Lynn/Chase Wedding

GH’s wardrobe director, Shawn Reeves, put in months of work behind-the-scenes putting together the looks for the splashy Brook Lynn/Chase nuptials the show mounted this month. “I found out in December that the Brook Lynn/Chase wedding was going to be in the first few months of the new year, so I started living with this wedding way before we actually started filming it,” he explains. “Of course, the first thing I always have to start thinking about is the key people at the wedding — the bride, the mother of the bride, the grandmother of the bride. Those, I think, are my big challenges, along with not knowing who is going to be at the wedding [when I first start conceptualizing looks]. But I knew I had to get those women figured out first because they are sort of specialty characters, which takes a little more time and energy. Initially, it wasn’t going to be a big wedding, but then we realized it was going to be a big event, so that was kind of my jumping-off point, in that I wanted it to be kind of an old-fashioned, big soap opera wedding.”

The color palette came into focus “because I started seeing all of these beautiful florals coming into the stores, with beautiful colors that we haven’t seen in a while. For the last few years, there’s been kind of doldrums in fashion, but when I stated seeing these really beautiful colors and florals, I just thought, ‘You know what? We need this wedding to be joyful. The audience needs something really big and splashy and spectacular.’ Luckily, I had time to get the ball rolling and to get everything in order, but where it all started was making sure I had the right dress for the bride.”

For this wedding, Reeves did a lot more shopping for the men than he typically does. “All of the guys were in new suits for this, except for Ned. A lot of times, for weddings, we have the men in tuxedos, which is economical because [all the male characters] have a tuxedo in their closet. But with this wedding, I just thought, ‘You know what? We’re not doing formal. We’re doing like, high afternoon, garden, almost British wedding.’ So I wanted the men to be in blues and grays, suits in that late spring/early summer palette.” He had one other guiding design principle: “Other than the men in the the wedding party, I didn’t want anybody in black at all. I had a ‘no black’ rule and so that meant, you know, Kelly Monaco [Sam] couldn’t be wearing black. It gave us a chance to do something different with some of the characters.” Here, Reeves takes Digest behind the seams — er, scenes — of his wardrobe selections.

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

"We had a dress early on that was okay, just okay, but it didn’t knock my socks off," says Reeves of his bridal gown-selecting journey. "So we kept looking. Poor Amanda [Setton, Brook Lynn] — she tried on so many wedding dresses! And then one day, I had her meet me downtown at a bridal shop in the fashion district. She met me there and she had her father with her, and the very first dress she put on was the dress [we chose]. We were just like, ‘Wow!’ This dress was off the rack. The silhouette, the plunging front — it was just beautiful on her. We were really happy with the dress. The gown was far more contemporary in the type of lace that was used on it, the lace and the trim was more modern, and it had these interesting layers of tulle. We tried on other dresses with more traditional lace and beading and they just looked kind of dated on her. The plunging neckline, the lace and trim, and the choppy layers of the skirt — it just felt very fresh. It felt more like Brook Lynn. It’s a little more on the bold side, so it fit Brook Lynn more than the others did. We did try on other dresses that day, but we kept coming back to this one. We texted Frank [Valentini, executive producer] a picture of it and he was like, “I love it!” She had to wear that thing for, I think, five days. It was not that comfortable to wear, but she was a trooper. She had her own personal attendant who carried the train around for her and helped her throughout the day, and I can’t even tell you how amazing Amanda is to work with. She's so easygoing, she never gets cranky, and she looked beautiful." The winning dress is by designer Lillian West.

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

Josh Swickard's Chase wore a dark blue tux to complement his beautiful bride. Notes Reeves, "There are some really beautiful, deep, inky, midnight blue midnight tuxedos out in the world. I knew from day one I didn't want him in a solid black tuxedo, I wanted him in one of these sort of midnight blue tuxedos. This one is by Hugo Boss. We just had to hem the pants for Josh and off he went. So easy! Then I had the the groomsmen and Gregory, Chase's father, in black tuxedos."

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

"Rena [Sofer, Lois] and I found that suit," Reeves recalls. "We wanted to make sure that she wasn’t so Lois that it drew too much focus. We wanted it to be fun, but we didn’t want the wedding to be about Lois. I wanted to just kind of tone her down, but still have that [Lois] spirit. We wanted her to be a little more rock and roll, and that suit just felt rock and roll. Rena prefers pants, and a floral dress just would not have worked; it’s just not very Lois. It was kind of a challenge to figure out where Lois was going to land in her wardrobe, but we found that suit early on and we decided it would be fun to do a fascinator — nothing too flashy, nothing too big. I ordered several fascinators from a company in England [Hobbs London] and I think they worked out pretty well, and then, we loaded her up with pearls and off you go! The suit is Zadig&Voltaire." And, fun fact, "One of her layered pearl necklaces is a piece I've kept since I was working on Another World. I used it on Linda Dano [ex-Felicia] on AW and Marj Dusay [ex-Alex] wore it once on Guiding Light. And now Rena Sofer has joined the club!" For Lois's mother, Gloria (Ellen Travolta), Reeves explains, "That coral satin blazer, I already had in stock here. It's by Alice + Olivia, and it was something I had bought last summer for Blair [Kassie DePaiva’s One Life To Live character] when she was on, but we didn’t use it. I just thought it was such a pretty blazer. The pants, I bought at Macy's, which is carrying this new collection labeled Donna Karan. I saw the flowy pants and it was the same color as the jacket I already had, so I bought it on a whim, thinking 'Something will work!' And it all matched perfectly. Ellen loved the colors, and it just felt really elegant and pretty on her."

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

Brook Lynn's paternal grandmother, Tracy (Jane Elliot), was escorted by the groom's father, Gregory (Gregory Harrison). "It came down to color; it worked with the palette," Reeves says of his selection for Tracy. "I ran across that suit at Bloomingdale's [by the label Lafayette] and I had ordered the pants; they were kind of a fitted pant with that jacket. Jane didn't really care for the pants, so we decided to go ahead and make a silk chiffon skirt to go with the the jacket, and then we added the little ruffles at the end of the sleeves to soften it up a little bit. It just was such a pretty color on her. It was the only outfit I even tried on her; we just kind of knew, like, ‘This is it, this is going to work.’ And my amazing sewing department, I don't know how they did it, but they made that chiffon skirt in like two days. We also made the camisole; it’s made out of the lining from the skirt [that we didn’t use]. I had bought that broach with the bunch of lilacs at Macy’s, so we added that as well. I thought it was a nice touch.”

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

"Because we hadn’t done a wedding like this in a very long time, I wanted to make sure that I had my maid of honor and my bridesmaid in matching dresses," Reeves reports. "I just really felt this was the kind of wedding that would lend itself to that. We ordered quite a few dresses and what [we landed on] for Kirsten [Storms, Maxie] and Katelyn [MacMullen, Willow] were very romantic and still contemporary. They are wearing dresses by Johnny Was [the Ruksana Floral-Print Lace-Trim Maxi Dress]. Johnny Was for a long time was doing very sort of boho, modern hippie clothing. They’ve started updating their style and their look, but it’s not [a brand] you would think of for bridesmaids’ dresses. That printed floral silk was just so pretty, and Kirsten loved it.”

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

While Willow showed off her Johnny Was dress, hubby Michael (Chad Duell) looked sharp in a John Varvatos suit.

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

“Kelly [Monaco, Sam] really surprised me when we were doing the fittings. This was like the second dress we put on her, this pretty yellow floral lace dress over a nude lining. I was surprised she loved it. It was something kind of outside of her [typical] color range, her color palette, but it worked on her. She really, she liked it. Plus, again, it kind of got her out of that sort of darker-colored world. This wedding gave us a little more opportunity to get a lot of characters out of their normal looks.” Monaco's dress is by Dress The Population; the style is called the Audrey Embroidered Fit & Flare Dress and the color is Canary.; Dominic Zamprogna (Dante) is wearing Emporio Armani.

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

"Eva's [LaRue, Natalia] dress seemed to kind of throw people off," Reeves remarks, "because it reads a little whiter [on TV] than what it really is. With this dress and even Lois's suit, I knew when we chose it, some people are going to think it's white and we're going to get feedback from people going, 'You never wear white to a wedding!' But I was fine with it and when we did the fitting [with different options], this was Eva's favorite. It has such a nice soft floral print to it." She is wearing BCBGMAXAZRIA, the Women's Fit and Flare Midi Cocktail Dress, while Maurice Benard's Sonny is rocking a suit by Hugo, Hugo Boss's red label.

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

To costume Eden McCoy (Josslyn), Reeves notes, "We went with another floor-length evening gown that we shortened. It was a stronger color than a lot of the others, but it worked for her. She was really hoping for a slip dress; she's really into slip dresses right now. This was actually the very first dress I bought, like two months before the wedding, as kind of my inspiration dress because it was one of the first ones I saw in the stores [that felt like the vision I had]. And so I bought it and I kept showing everybody: 'Okay, this is where we're going with the wedding.' I didn't know if we were actually going to use it or not, but it had the colors, the florals — it had everything that I kind of envisioned for the wedding itself in that dress and it ended up on Eden." The designer is Liz Foster, the Sateen Cowl Neck Gown.

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

"Kate [Mansi, Kristina, l.] was the inspiration for this dress," Staud's Oleander Organza Halter Dress in Cherry Blossom. "A couple of months ago; she was going to buy it personally to wear to a wedding. She showed it to me and said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘Well, I love it! I think it’s really editorial, it’s really cool.’ She didn’t end up getting it for that wedding, but when this wedding started rolling up, I remembered that dress. I needed something, obviously, for a pregnant woman, and to be honest with you, there's not a lot of really good, fancy pretty dresses to wear to a wedding in maternity land. I didn’t think a floral dress would be Kristina’s style, but I remembered that dress she had shown me before and I got it. It was actually floor-length, but we shortened it a bit. I thought she looked so chic and cute in it, and it was the right color for the palette, too." For her date, Blaze (Jacqueline Grace Lopez), Reeves selected the Cherli Floral Tiered Maxi Dress by ASTR The Label. He says, "I wanted to make sure that we saw more her as Allison and less as Blaze, so that's kind of why we ended up in that softer floral instead of something [more akin to] her harder Blaze looks. Blaze would usually be in some sort of black pleather outfit or something, but I wanted her to be Allison. She was there with Kristina as Kristina and Allison, you know?"

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

"Some people posted online that they thought Ned [Wally Kurth] should be in a tuxedo, being the father of the bride," acknowledges Reeves. "We talked about that; there was some discussion about it, and ultimately, we decided, 'You know, he's not in the actual wedding party,' who are all wearing tuxedos. He does walk her down the aisle, but then he is kind of really part of the big crowd [of guests]. We felt that if we put him in a tux, he wouldn't really fit in with the palette of the big crowd, which is why we ultimately decided not to put him in a tuxedo. If he’d been standing up at the altar during the ceremony, it would have been a different story. Plus, it kind of worked better with Lois and her wacky suit and fascinator." Wife Olivia's (Lisa LoCicero) look "is a dress by Michael Costello [the Michael Costello x REVOLVE Hanwi Gown]. It just felt very Olivia to me. Lisa loved it. It was actually a gown, a floor-length gown, and we shortened it for her. I often buy floor-length gowns and we shorten them if I can't find short dresses. This one had a cape or shawl-type thing that sort of drapes across the back. It's just fun and she was so pretty in it. And it was a solid; I needed some solids to balance out all the florals we were using."

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

"We were finally able to get Jordan [pictured with Cameron Mathison's Drew, who is clad in Giorgio Armani] out of her suits and put her in something that was still in character, just something she normally doesn’t wear," Reeves beamed of Tanisha Harper's on-screen look. "We had chosen another dress for her for the wedding, in kind of a plummy purple color, but she had mentioned to me that she didn't really care for the color purple. And we had other dresses we could put her in, including this alternate dress, so we went with this one [the Jasmine Asymmetric Midi Dress in Sandstone by A.L.C.] Honestly, I think it worked out better. It was so pretty and I needed that nice solid color with to balance out some of the florals. So, yeah, it was, it was a nice choice and it was something we already had in her closet; I'd purchased it for her months and months ago." The dress is the Jasmine Asymmetric Midi Dress in Sandstone by A.L.C.

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Exclusive: How GH’s Costume Designer Dressed The Brook Lynn/Chase Wedding

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